Persuasion and Coercion

Transcript

Greetings, everyone. This is Michael Nagler with our Nonviolent Moment for Thanksgiving time, 2024.

There's just a few items I'd like to share with you today. The first is, of course, for us for disappointing results of the election. But that's not exactly the angle that I want to take. Rather, all the discussion that you read about this, election is in terms of the strategy. Who made which political mistakes.

And, yeah, there is a strategic element, of course, but I think that real democracy is a decision-making process, and it's based on universal human dignity. And it's not supposed to be a contest, much less a fight.

And I’m remembering someone whom I knew personally, Tom Hayden, when he was in the legislature in California. He was running for governor. And someone spoke to him about a woman who was also running for governor and said to Tom, “What do you have to say about your opponent?” And he immediately came back – this is not a direct quote, I believe, he said, “She's not my opponent. She's my friend. This is an election, not a fight.”

And I've long had the feeling that democracy dies in this forefronting of competition over decision-making. And there have been a number of alternative processes to this simple vote counting and the polarity, I think, between two major parties that are always duking it out. And when there are two in opposition with some minor parties, it is impossible, I think, for most people to avoid the idea of a win or lose contest.

There's been a proposal that we do the elections by sortation, which is simply by chance. And that the results have been proven to be about as good as people using their political acumen, which is hard to find these days.

And another process that I think very highly of, if it could be made practical at this scale, is consensus making as is practiced by Quakers. Because it takes a long time, everybody discusses their point of view, and then you either assent or you dissent, or you stand in opposition. If you stand in opposition, you have to go back to the discussions and make compromises until at least this is acceptable. Although you won’t maybe vote for it.

So, on one hand, it takes a long time, and it requires a small group, but on the other hand, it doesn't leave the bitterness of a loser. And if you could build a system where these small groups, local places, would pyramid up to a decision. You could even have a national election without winners and bitter losers. And it would take a long time. But I think in the long run, it'd be worth it.

So, another election issue that I wanted to share with you today, and this is something that we can get on board with, it's something we can really be actionable about. And it's called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Now, right now, this compact is close to having enough electors to pass. And what this would do, it wouldn't eliminate the Electoral College, but it would do an end run around the inequalities in the Electoral College, which somehow always favor the Republicans.

And I'm sorry, I don't have before me the actual technology of how that would work. But I think this is a good approach because the Electoral College has at least twice in recent memories put a president in the White House who was not elected by a majority of voters. And this would really, really help creating a real democracy in our country.

And another thing about it that I like is that it doesn't eliminate the Electoral College. So, it's a kind of interim, gradualist approach, rather than in your face, we've got to get rid of this thing. So, in that sense, it lines up well with what we want to do in nonviolent strategy. Which is always, wherever possible, go to persuasion rather than coercion, make things into a decision-making process of the community rather than a fight between parties splitting that community.

So, the next two issues that I wanted to talk about today are not electoral per se. This is a bit personal, is anecdotal, I want to share with you. On the 21st of this month, November, in Colorado, the FBI knocked on the door of someone named Jonce Palmer, who was a general member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the co-founder of the Denver-Aurora Community Action Committee.

So, when confronted at the door, Palmer did not confirm their name, using the plural because I don't actually know what gender this person is, but refused to answer the questions and then firmly shut the door and the agents left.

So, first of all, the personal issue. When my daughter was still in diapers – and I hope she doesn’t hear this program. That was a long time ago. I was away on campus here – it was in Berkeley. And our next-door neighbors in our building were communists. And back in the day, you know, to say you were a communist meant that you were the chaos demon. And I mean I don't want to exaggerate it, but the panic about communism was intense in those days.

And sure enough, the FBI knocked on our apartment door across the street from Michael and Vicki, with whom we were very good friends at that point. And, Roberta, my ex-wife, opened the door. And it just so happened that she was in the act of cleaning the diaper of our young daughter. And I mention this detail because there she is standing at the door with a poopy wad of cotton in her hand.

The FBI, I imagine backing away slightly, said, “We want to talk to you about your next-door neighbors.” And she said, “I really don't want to do that.” And they said, “Well, suppose we were to tell you that this is a question of security.” Now security then and now is a word that strikes panic into the heart.

And, Roberta, in addition to having that object in her hand made a very, very wise – she just asked a very simple question. She said, “Whose security? Yours or mine?” And they were stumped. They had not expected to be challenged in that way, to be asked to think about what they were doing. They were just – and I hate to say this, I don't mean it to be terribly prejudicial, but they were just following orders.

And so that, again, was the end of what could have been a very unpleasant confrontation. The FBI probably already had my name on record because I was active in the Free Speech Movement. But here I am, about half a century later, still flourishing in a formerly democratic regime. So, this was very, very local and very personal. 

And now what I'd like to share with you is the opposite, really. It is a conflict which has been going on for decades, which has caused a great deal of human suffering, and which we hardly ever think about. And that is the Sahrawi conflict in or alongside – that’s what the conflict is all about, in or alongside of Morocco in North Africa.

The problem is, and I believe it was back in 1972, and I might be wrong about the date – I might be wrong about almost any date – that Spain gave Morocco its independence. It is part of the general anti-colonialist movement of the time. And yet, they didn't do anything about the Sahrawi Independence Struggle. They simply backed away from it.

And there are many cases where colonialism ended in an irresponsible way. Where colonial powers had either caused or ignored an ethnic, or other type of conflict, which they kept a lid on while they were a third party in power. And when they removed that umbrella, of course, the conflict exploded.

And we need hardly mention that the biggest example of that is what happened in India. Because as long as Indians and Muslims were both subordinate to the British Raj, the struggles between one another were relatively minor. When the British Raj was no longer in the picture, and India itself, the Crown Jewel, was suddenly up for grabs, who was going to own it? And in India, religious differences are extremely important.

So, as we know, you know, people – maybe in a neighborhood of a million, lost their life in that struggle. So, this is a very similar structural case. Spain pulls out it. It gives freedom to Morocco, but the Sahrawi, who are Bedouin, who I believe they speak a somewhat different dialect of Arabic, they are really a distinct community within the nation state, they want their freedom. They want to be able to follow their way of life. And Morocco has not conceded.

And so, there was a little episode recently, where a man named Mohamed Mayara, and he is the coordinator of something called Equipe Media. And this is a case, once again, of a journalist being attacked. This is going on now at a drastic rate, all over the world. He was set upon by four Moroccan intelligence operatives and badly injured.

And yet he went on to say, and this is why I am highlighting his personal case – he goes on to say, “Together, we remain steadfast in our mission to shed light on the realities in Western Sahara and uphold the principles of justice and human rights.”

So, this is the spirit of nonviolence as she is spoke. You know, one very important aspect of nonviolence, that it's not a physical thing and cannot be overcome by physical means. I remember in the case of the little village of Le Chambon in Dordogne region in the south of France, during the occupation by the Vichy government, south of France.

This village had a pastor named André Trocmé. I may share with you some quotes from him in the near future. They decided they would not go along with the regime. And instead they became a refugee center for Jews and others who were fleeing Eastern Europe. And they saved about 6000 people, most of them Jewish, most of them children, sent them out to the country at various schools.

And one interesting wrinkle here is that the German commandant, Major Schmäling, who was in charge of the region, he was asked, incidentally, by Philip Hallie, who wrote the book Lest Innocent Blood be Shed, about what André and Magda Trocmé, and his brother Daniel did. A very inspiring book, which actually also became a documentary film.

He asked Schmäling, “How could all of this go on under your nose, and you didn't notice it?” And Schmäling says, “What makes you think I didn't notice it? I knew all about it,” he said. “But also, I'm a good Catholic, you know. I understand such things.” It's a direct quote from Schmäling. 

So, he risked his life, recognizing that now he was confronting a different kind of power. Which as a religious Catholic he recognized, and I believe he may have been celebrated recently as one of the righteous among the Gentiles in the Israeli system.

So, this remaining steadfast despite the attack upon him is very much in the spirit of nonviolence, and in fact, the whole Sahwari struggle has been characterized by peaceful marches. It's a struggle that you might contrast with that of Ukraine, which is not nonviolent, of course.

And that might make us remember a very well-known contrast between India and Algeria. I believe I got this from Gene Sharp. This is history. And it is a dramatic illustration of the cost of violence versus the cost of nonviolence.

The background here is that Algiers at the time had a little bit under a million people. India had over 300 million people. And in the result, oh, there were about 2 or 3000 people maybe, who lost their lives in India, if you don't consider this horrific famine that took place during that struggle. But in terms of actual conflict, there were about 2 or 3000 people, I’m estimating, out of 350 million.

Whereas in Algiers, just about 900,000 people died. And that is an estimate, by the way because it's very hard to get an exact figure. They go as low as 500,000. They go as high as 1.5 million. But in any case, it's an enormously greater proportion of the Algerian public compared to the proportion of the Indian public.

And the difference is attributable to the fact that the Indian spirit, the Indian struggle, was nonviolence in spirit. The Algerian struggle was very much a guerrilla war and was marked by extremities of violence on both sides – mostly the French colonial side, I have to say.

So, if you look at results, you know, my theory is the difference between “work” and work. Both these struggles “worked,” quote unquote, in the sense that they both achieved independence for their respective countries. But in one case, the case of Algeria, almost a 10th of the population perished and it left extremely bad relationships between Algiers and France. Whereas in India, the casualty rate is drastically lower. And as we know, there are quite cordial, you know, relatively speaking, considering history, quite cordial relationships, really, between Indian and Britain societies and government.

And so, you know, a lot of positive constructive things can be done, a lot of collaboration can happen. And it just it's just so much better overall for the human spirit. So, where they both “worked”, they were very different in terms of the way that they worked their influence on the society going forward.

I should go back to the Sahwari struggle for just a minute. If you want to know more about it, a friend and colleague of mine, Stephen Zunes at the University of San Francisco, is a real expert on this struggle. He writes about it constantly. That's a Z-U-N-E-S is his last name. And there’s a scene from that struggle that’s taking place in the city of Aaiún in what is now still Morocco in our film The Third Harmony.

So, I'm happy to end, on that reference to our film, which we still are making very great use of and which I still think very highly of. I would recommend it to anyone. If you haven't seen it, and if you have seen it and want to work out a showing, a screening, just get in touch with us. See what we typically do. It’s a documentary about 45 minutes long. We show “The Third Harmony,” and then I do a Q&A and I explain how it’s part of a larger project, and so forth.

But be that as it may, this is four of the many nonviolent highlights, I guess I would say that I have picked up since our last broadcast. And I very much look forward to seeing you again.

Have a happy Thanksgiving until our next episode. Thank you very much.